The Cole Website

Sparrows farted as well as a little rain first thing this morning. She who must be obeyed got up early and organised food and breakfast (Thanks Hon) and I hit the road to meet up with fishing mate Bearfoot Mike at about 6:30am at Hamurana.

The lake was empty of any boats or fisherman other than us two mugs. There was a little discussion on who was fishing what and off we went. I had mentioned to Mike that I had lost the odd fish or two on past trips and he commented back, strange 'I don't get that problem'. Well those were famous last words as he had the first two strikes and lost both fish.  

But I did manage to land the next two fish (caught on a clown lure). Not what I would call good fish. Mike performed surgery on the first and it was full of very large smelt. The second fish I released to live another day or two.

'The Pins' got a work out but not a lot of action so we trolled down to the Ohau Channel and gave that a go and I was nice to Mike and allowed him to land his first fish (white and yellow lure).  

The weather was not great and the wind was a pain, but we stuck it out for a few hours. We worked through a variety of lures and had a few strikes but nothing stuck before I managed to hit a nice young hen (baby brown lure). It put up a good fight and will be in the smoker for tea tomorrow night.

We struck a little rain at the end of the trip but the canopy kept most off of us.

Mike, thanks for the invite, it was great to finally catch up and even though the fishing was not great the company was.  

Tight Lines All.

I have not managed to get out fishing as often as I like because of the direction of the wind. So last friday I decided to try an afternoon fish. I left home about 3:00pm and headed around to the Hamurana ramp that I use. There were about 5 or 6 fly fisherman working the stream mouth as well as a few boats out.

I had promised to be home by about 6:00pm so I had about 2 hrs of fishing time. Sadly nothing to take home, but I got a very good hard hit, lost one at the boat and return one because it was undersize.

In hindsite I should have gone out about 5:00 and fished through to about 7:30 and will try that the next time that I decide to do an aftyernoon fish.

Sunday morning I awoke to no wind and decided to give Hamurana another try. I was a little late at leaving and got on the water at about 8:00am. There were many boats out with about 6 working in front of the streeam mouth and a few down at the pins.

I trolled down towards the pins using my deep water express rig with a dark fly as a teaser and the brownie lure. It was a little like Queen Street in Auckland with all of the boats around me. Conditions were very plesant, now wind and the sun hiding behind a bit of cloud, not too hot.

I landed three fish in about 20mins, two I kept and the third I returned. The fish were not big but I needed fresh fish for the smoker. They were caught in me usual spot about halfway down towards the pins. I continued to troll to the pins and did a couple of turns there, but no strikes.

At one stage there looked like about 8 or 9 boats working in front of the Hamurana Stream with another 6 boats at the pins. At about 10:00am I headed back to the ramp and was stopped by the Fishing and Game Inspector for the normal check of licence and measure of fish caught.

I have ‘borrowed’ an 8hp Yamaha outboard from my brotherinlaw and that enables me to quickly move from one spot to another. It runs very quiet and makes for a very nice few hours on the water. I just need to hook in to some bigger fish.